


Confessional

by historymiss



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:15:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26234743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/historymiss/pseuds/historymiss
Summary: 'I’ve never really been the one everyone wants. Unlovable Mercymorn and her acid tongue, at least Cristabel was stupid but agreeable.I knew the truth, because I knew you. You were not stupid. You just found what really mattered, and you never truly cared for anything else.'
Comments: 6
Kudos: 46





	Confessional

They asked me to write about your life. Instructional, the child from Records called it, some baby-faced boy with amniotic fluid likely still smeared up his arse. Historic. 

If you could have heard him, Cris, you would have laughed. I don’t laugh much anymore, alas. Not that I ever really did to begin with. Seems like I didn’t absorb the knack from you. Only the fighting skills, and the eyes. The memory of kneeling on cool marble, and fingers in your hair. You looked up and saw his eyes, like the apex of an eclipse, and I felt your heart turn over in your chest.

It was love, all in a moment. I recognised it. It felt that way when I looked at you.

After it was done, and I opened my eyes, I think they were a little disappointed that I didn’t get more from you. I’ve never really been the one everyone wants. Unlovable Mercymorn and her acid tongue, at least Cristabel was stupid but agreeable. 

I knew the truth, because I knew you. You were not stupid. You just found what really mattered, and you never truly cared for anything else.

I sent him away, of course. Writing about you would mean writing about _him_ , and I’m not ready for the absolute grief that that would bring from you know who. As if he was the only person in the world who ever lost someone they loved. A sibling, a comrade, a lover, it makes no real difference in the end. They all go down the same. Or don’t, I suppose, if you’re Anastasia. 

(Oh, hush. I’m not being a bitch.)

Anyway, I have no particular interest in cataloguing the many and varied ways Alfred demeaned himself for you, following you around like a puppy as if certainty of faith were a communicable disease. In his eyes, I think, you had cracked some kind of code, or exemplified a way of being, touched something that he couldn’t look at with the naked eye, and so he tried to experience it through you. I can’t fault him for mistaking you for the sun. 

Augustine, of course, never forgave you for showing him that kind of devotion. We assumed it was jealousy, at first, didn’t we? You, bless and damn you forever, prayed for his soul. I devised a thousand little verbal barbs to keep him licking his wounds and away from your presence, so you could have your time with your acolyte. If I’d have known what was coming, I think I’d have sacked it all in and just taken your time myself, or offered it, anyway. Not that the answer would have been any different, in the end. You always knew I loved you. You just loved God more.

I’ll never forget the way he looked after it was done. The hollows under his eyes, just different enough that you couldn’t pretend that it hadn’t happened. The first of the Emperor’s necrosaints, for better or worse. His face twisted with disgust when he saw you, and you put your hand on your rapier, still smiling, and congratulated him on his most holy ascension.

He thought you a gibbering fanatic, then, but I can recognise heart-sickness when I see it. You were jealous. Alas, I did not pray for your soul. I devoured it, instead, when you offered it. You thought it a tribute to the Emperor, a holy sacrifice for his glory. 

Cristabel, beloved, when I woke with the taste of your flesh between my teeth and your spirit locked inside my heart, a treasure inside a jar of clay, did you realise I wasn’t worth it? 

Did you laugh?


End file.
